Hero Complex has dropped a new image of Bilbo Baggins – played by Martin Freeman – from the film, looking like he’s a long way from Bag End. But still, the source material is generally “lighter” than that of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and as producer Philippa Boyens notes, finding the right feel for ‘The Hobbit’ was a big task. “The story is very much a children’s story so deciding how to tell this was one of the first things we had to do,” Boyens said. “Who is the audience? It is very distinctly different, tonally, to ‘Lord of the Rings’ until the very end and then you begin to see the world of Middle Earth opening up…but, having said that, we felt that it is the same audience [who will come to see the films] and then you start to worry because it is easy to repeat yourself. It is quite a similar journey, you’re going from the Shire to a large, dangerous mountain.”

To be specific, Bilbo teams up with a ragtag bunch who travel to defeat the dragon Smaug, who sits on a horde of treasure. While we’ll be seeing a lot of new faces, folks like Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee and Ian Holm are back to reprise their roles through the two films. We’re still about a year away from its release, but on December 20th we’ll find out if the return to the Shire will still conjure up the same magic.